Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions based on the passage:
Lord of the Flies is a post-war fiction written by William Golding in 1954. The novel serves as a catalyst for intriguing discussion, especially regarding people's capacity for good and evil and the fragility of moral restraint. The book questions concepts such as the idea of community, leadership, and the rule of law. The novel gives an insight into human behaviour in a lawless land. It also explores the concept of civilization. Is civilization something that comes naturally to us, or is it imposed upon us?
Golding argues in his text that human beings are naturally savage. They get attracted towards violence and find pleasure in it. Sigmund Freud said that without the inherent capability of human beings to suppress their desires, civilization would have never happened. In the novel, Golding depicts this through a group of boys stranded on an uninhabited island. The novel shows how civilization works like a façade and hides the evil that is deeply rooted inside every individual. Even if civilization flourishes, we humans are merely hiding our beast and not destroying it.
How does Golding portray human nature in the novel?
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Explanation
Correct Answer
Humans are naturally drawn to violence and savagery
Explanation
The passage explicitly provides Golding's perspective on human nature in the opening sentence of the second paragraph: "Golding argues in his text that human beings are naturally savage." The text immediately expands on this claim by stating, "They get attracted towards violence and find pleasure in it." This directly aligns with the idea that humans possess an inherent inclination toward wild and aggressive behaviors.
The alternative options are incorrect because they completely invert Golding's philosophy as described in the text. Option 1 states that humans instinctively uphold law, but the passage highlights "the fragility of moral restraint" and describes a "lawless land." Options 3 and 4 assert that humans prioritize cooperation or reject aggression, which contradicts the text's assertion that evil is deeply rooted inside individuals and that we are merely hiding our inner beast.
Key Points
For direct retrieval questions in reading comprehension, match the literal keywords of the question to the text. The sentence explicitly pairs the subject "human beings" with the adjectives "naturally savage" and the noun "violence," making the identification of the correct option straightforward.